The disclosed embodiments concern an avionic system and architecture with integrated power management and particularly relates to a multisystem avionic architecture concept and system based on onboard computers with management of electric power integrated in the computers as well as an aircraft equipped with such a system.
The use of semiconductor power controller systems (called “Solid State Power Controller” or “SSPC” according to the English terminology) for the management of electric power in aircraft is known.
These electronic power systems combine a programmable control logic with electric power switching components based on semiconductors.
The power switching components based on semiconductors eliminate moving parts, as opposed to electromechanical components (relays, circuit-breakers) traditionally used in the industry.
An SSPC channel is used to monitor an electric line supplying a system or a load and can be dedicated to alternating or direct current.
Several SSPC channels can be grouped in an electronic board. This board has a microprocessor and a program that can be easily reconfigured by downloadable modifications.
The functions provided by these switching components are protection against wiring short-circuits or electric loads, power switching by the receiving and processing of external commands of the discrete signal type or commands carried by digital buses, surveillance and report of the state of the channel or channels, still by discrete signals or by messages sent on digital buses.
This technology, for example, is used in the airplane electric distribution system of the Airbus A380 airplane to supply and switch electric loads that are shared among airplane onboard systems.
In other previous airplanes, the functions provided by the SSPCs were effected by electromechanical circuit-breakers and relay-based hardwired logic units, and the advantage of SSPCs resides in their flexibility, due to the fact that they are based on a programmable logic, their robustness relative to vibrations and the reliability of semiconductor switching components that they use.
Semiconductor power controller systems (SSPCs) with secondary electric distribution are arranged in specific cabinets.
These cabinets and the SSPCs are defined and developed by teams of electric system engineers who are also responsible for the integration of these systems with the rest of the electric system, even though the switching logic units as well as the configuration of electric protections are defined by the designers of the onboard systems supplied by the SSPCs.
It is also known to equip aircraft with onboard integrated modular avionics (in English “Integrated Modular Avionics”, “IMA”).
Integrated modular avionics is a general term that describes a network of onboard computers of the generic computer type, containing computation and communication resources that are available to the airplane systems, contrary to traditional avionics based on specialized computers specifically designed for given functions.
Distributed software applications are installed on these computers to fulfill the different functions of different systems so that a single IMA computer can offer its resources to several systems.
In an IMA avionic system, instead of having different computers for different systems, as in traditional avionics, one has generic computers that can be adapted by software programming that optimizes and simplifies the implementation of systems.
However, at this time, there are no configurations integrating semiconductor power systems into modular avionics and, while onboard modular avionics IMA use onboard systems for communication and computation resources, they do not integrate functions linked to the management of electric power.
In the current tendency towards all-electric airplanes, the need to control electric loads of the system (electric pumps, actuators, lighting, etc.) and to protect the associated wiring is common to almost all onboard systems.
This tendency and the absence of integration of power management in onboard modular avionics leads to concentrating the modules and the avionic computers in avionic cabinets, while electric functions are concentrated in electric cabinets and relay boxes, or cabinets comprising semiconductor power controller systems, such as in the A380 electric distribution.
This architecture poses the problem that the electric definition of onboard systems is divided.
In fact, the electric definition of each onboard system is the responsibility of a team specialized in the field of this system.
With SSPC technology, the definition of SSPC cabinets has become the responsibility of a particular electric team.
The definition of the system is therefore shared with the electric team responsible for the SSPC cabinets since the data that are used to design the configuration of the cabinet are defined by the electric system team according to the needs of the system teams.
Any electric modification of a system becomes also a modification of the SSPC cabinet.
Consequently, the definition of the system is no longer complete without the electric team's definition of the SSPC cabinet.
Splitting the definition of the electric power part can lead to problems of management of configuration and of industrial application of modifications.
A second disadvantage is the length of the wiring between the systems and the SSPCs.
The functions of onboard systems are implemented on onboard computers. These computers are all installed in avionic cabinets. In contrast, their power management needs are implemented either in SSPC cabinets, or in classical cabinets and relay boxes, which requires using bundles of wires between these systems.
In addition to these problems, such an architecture creates the need to define and develop two separate equipment systems in parallel: on the one hand, the IMA equipment, and on the other hand, the SSPC-based equipment or electric equipment based on electromechanical components, in order to provide functions common to the needs of the aircraft systems. It goes without saying that it is also necessary to implement specific cabinets to install this equipment on the airplane, on the one hand, avionic cabinets and, on the other hand, electric cabinets.